Hey, I posted this on time! Yay! Okay, so this chapter is super duper short, and kind of boring, but bear with me. It gets better after this, and I will go up to my usual 3000 word chapters. This is not my best work, but it does set everything up for later. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1 -The Fall

This is Berk. It is a place of larger than life, kill or be killed, and fire. The village has been here for seven generations, yet nearly every building is new. Why? Because of the dragons. Life on Berk is a hard one. Most people would leave, not Vikings. They settled here, and they have every intention of staying. Except maybe for one.

The chief's son has been missing for five years. He was taken to his house one morning, after making some ridiculed claims of hitting a Night Fury in a raid. The only thing left when Stoick came back from cleaning up the raid was an open back door. Though, as ridiculed as his claims were, no one had seen a trace of the Night Fury since. Both disappeared on the same night. Most people refused to admit that there may be a link, but some were left wondering…

It was a clear morning, the sun twinkling of the dewy leaves, and the air was crisp and cool. The waking birds were twittering, and the wildlife of the day began their morning routines. As did Astrid.

Astrid's father died before she was born, and Astrid was an only child. Her mother had been growing sicker over the years, until looking after her became almost a full time job, so her hands were kept full. To make money, Astrid would spend her mornings and evenings hunting and foraging, before selling what she could and keeping the rest for her and her mother. She then spent the day running odd jobs for those who would take her. She was a strong girl, top in dragon training, and smart with her thinking. This is probably why the chief himself often sorted her out. Though technically Snotlout was now heir, Stoick had a hard time getting him to do anything right, so he often turned to Astrid to pick up the slack.

These days, Stoick was left a lonely man. He had lost both his wife and son. He would spend most nights staring into his drink, murmuring about how he should have done something differently. He was still a great chief, but his he art was no longer in it. It left when his son did.

Astrid was glad of this work, it helped her to take her mind off the things that were going wrong at home. Her mother was getting worse, and no one knew how to help her, and there was nothing Astrid could do. Instead, she put on a brave face, and struck down the world before it could strike her first.

She had her mother's old axe strapped to her back, and a bow and arrow in her hand. She was not great with a bow, but it was the weapon best suited to the game she was hunting, so she learnt. She took a different path each morning, so the animals did not learn her habits. This particular route was taking her deep into the heart of the woods. So far, she feared she may become lost. She caught sight of a waterfowl just ahead, and converted to her hunter's stalk. Once again, this was a skill she had to learn, for it was not particularly useful for a dragon fighting Viking. She pulled the string back, preparing to let loose, when something scared the bird off, causing her to curse to herself. She began in a different direction, away from whatever scared the bird.

She looked up to see yet another bird flit overhead. She stalked after it, hoping to catch it off guard as it landed. That's when she found the cove. She saw a strange change of light ahead, and lowered her bow to go investigate. She weaved through some rocks, and then had to spread her arms back to stop herself toppling over the edge. She didn't even have a chance to look at the cove, as she saw the bird land on a rock behind her. It was almost too small to bother with, but she had already come this far. She pulled back the bow's string, and took a step back to take aim. Her back foot slipped suddenly, and she let out a shocked cry as her arrow went flying in the wrong direction, and she watched the bird disappear into the distance. But she was in for an even worse shock. The rock she slipped on loosened more rocks, and soon she found the ledge she was standing on caving in on itself, and she was riding a rock slide down the sheer cliff. She let out a yell as she came down, and gave a pained gasped as she came to a halt.

She groaned and slowly picked herself up from the rubble, self-assessing any damage that may have been inflicted. As she leant on her right hand to push herself off the ground, she winced. Badly sprained, maybe broken. She continued to check down her body, only to find scrapes and bruises. She could deal with that. Now with the knowledge that her body could function, she started to survey her surroundings. Her bow was snapped in half, and the arrows were scattered everywhere. She looked down at her axe, which had escaped its sheath on her back, and sighed in relief to see it was still in one piece. It was one of the last things she had left to remind her of happier times.

Her mouth pulled itself into a determined line and she started plotting escape routes. She swivelled around on her feet, and came to a halt when something strange caught her eye on the other side of the cove. A piece of wood, that appeared to be part of a construction. She walked closer to see it looked rather like a shelter. But for whom? She felt her heart beat pick up, before she quickly scolded it and told herself to stop being silly. No monster was going to jump out of the woods at her. She continued to approach it, and the closer she got, the more she didn't like it. Without realising it, she moved into her hunting prowl.

She reached the structure, and was able to quickly determine that it was indeed man-made. It seemed to be filled with cog works and pulley systems. There was a pipe down to the stream, and other pieces of machinery going in all sorts of directions. There was a strange wooden door/wall that most of the mechanics led to and she stopped to study it. It appeared to by a sliding door. Without any thought to fact that she might be intruding, she slit the door a foot wide, and peered in. She barely had time to take in the sights however, when her eyes fell onto a sleeping mass on the floor. Her breath caught in her throat, and she made an involuntary gasp. A man, it was just a man. But her little noise made him stir, and his eyes suddenly flashed open.

Astrid was met with the most alarming sight. The eyes reflected the stream of light pouring in through the gap, and green slitted dragon eyes stared back at her. She cried out and quickly slammed the door shut, before running away, pulling her axe from her behind her in preparation. She quickly had to swap from her right to her left hand, however, due to her wrist. She kept going until she reached the end of the cove. She peered up at the sheer cliff, and soon realised there was no way of escaping. She turned her back to the wall and prepared herself.

There was nothing in her immediate line of sight, and she snuck a glance at the door she had slammed. It remained shut. She wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not, so she remained in a defensive stance, ready for an assault. She continued to stare at the door, waiting for some movement.

()()()()()

The sun had begun to lower in the sky, and still nothing had happened. Despite her best efforts, Astrid had begun to lose her attentiveness. She still had her axe in her left hand, but her right wrist was now throbbing, and she had taken off her wrist wrap to find it had swollen to a fair size. She had slouched against the rock behind her, then slowly come down into a seated position. She elevated her right hand, knowing that it would help with the swelling, but she had nothing to bandage it with, and her wrist wrap wasn't tight enough. She still had grazes to attend to, but she did not want to take her left hand off her axe, and her right hand was close to useless.

To pass the time, she continued to scan the area for an escape route, but she was yet to find one. When night began to near, Astrid pulled her hood over her head to try and keep warm. She could not find enough wood in the small area she had confined herself to, so she had no fire to keep herself warm. It was so cold. When night finally fell, she heard movement over were the monster had slept. She held her breath and slowly stood up, axe stiff in her hand, but by the time she got up the noise was gone. She spent the next hour or so waiting for something to leap out from the dark at her, but nothing came. Slowly she sat back down, only to be racked with violent shivers. Her teeth chattered and she curled into a ball, trying to get all her extremities as close to her body as possible. Eventually it got so bad she had to get up and move. She started with jogging on the spot, then moved to star jumps, then sit-ups, and then to a full on work out. It only helped to a certain point. It did assist to calm her nerves though, doing something so familiar to her.

She was onto her fourth set of sit-ups when her body finally collapsed of exhaustion. To spend so long on full adrenaline, after falling from a cliff, then spending so long in the cold and doing so much physical activity to keep warm, her body could take no more. Her head fell to the ground, and her legs collapsed flat on the ground.

()()()()()

The first grey of sunlight could be seen, and she was curled up tightly into a ball on her left side, body convulsing on its own accord. Her eyes were screwed tight as she slept fitfully. She was too far unconscious to even notice that when the sun began to appear in the horizon, a warm body picked her up from the ground and carried her into a cave like home. Her body began to relax in the warmth and she slept for hours, with the monster she had spent the whole night fearing sleeping a few metres from her own.

Thanks for reading. Pretty please review I will cherish it forever (or at least for the next week). Also, thank you so much for those who have reviewed, and to those who have followed and favourited. I'm so happy to see such a positive response already. I hope it continues. Feel free to ask any questions, I will answer, and constructive criticism is welcome. I'm here to improve as well as entertain. :)